A retired Kansas Army officer has lost his fight in federal court over his adopted daughter’s citizenship status, meaning she may have to return to her native South Korea.
Lt. Col. Patrick Schreiber of Lansing sued after federal immigration authorities rejected visa and citizenship applications for his legally adopted daughter Hyebin, a Korean-immigrant niece legally brought to the U.S. by Schreiber and his spouse in 2012, when the girl was 15.
Schreiber’s service the following year in Afghanistan caused the couple to put off Hyebin’s Schreiber’s legal adoption until she was 17. An adoption lawyer had advised that, under Kansas law, that was OK as the cutoff date to complete the process was Hyebin’s 18th birthday.
But under immigration law, foreign-born children must be adopted before reaching 16 to derive citizenship from their American parents.
